I know you're snacking.

Right now.

I'm eating a clementine as I write this column, and I'm also thinking about that big bag of tortilla chips sitting on top of my refrigerator.

Americans love to snack. It might be a piece of fruit — the No. 1 snack, according to Harry Balzer, who studies food trends for The NPD Group, a market research firm — or chips, cookies, popcorn, energy bars. We are constantly at the feedbag.

Balzer says more than half of us are regular chip eaters. Forty-four percent can't keep their hands off cookies on a regular basis. Popcorn is right there at 26 percent. It's ingrained: My toddler can already say "chips?"

Well, I have a snack for you: Nut and seed brittle.

I know, it sounds as if it's something for the birds, and it looks a little bit like the bricks of food you put in the feeders in your backyard. But it is really tasty.

My sister, Pam, gave us a package of the treats for the holidays. At first glance I thought, "No way. Be polite, then give it to mom. She's always grazing on bags of nuts stashed in her purse."

But my sister has come a long way since the night she and her boyfriend, Spacious, (no joke), told my aunt that they weren't going to have dessert because sugar is made from ground up bones. That went over real well with the family.

Now, she's at a cooking school in northern California that focuses on seasonal, local, unrefined ingredients and I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt.

She made a good case for eating the brittle: There are no trans fats and no high fructose corn syrup (the type of sweetener found in sodas and most candy, among many other foods). Two evils in the world of nutrition. The nuts in the snack contain good fats that help maintain good cholesterol.

You can guess the rest — why else am I recommending it? It's got all the elements of a great snack. It's sweet from maple syrup, crunchy and filling. And as a bonus, you don't feel as guilty after you've downed a tray of it.

It's also really easy to make. As slow as I am, it didn't take much longer to prepare than it would to get in you car and drive to the market to satisfy a craving. I made it on my own while my wife Izabela cooked dinner. (I try and keep her nearby whenever I'm in the kitchen).

OK, I did make the idiotic mistake of thinking that the weights listed on the containers of nuts were the same as the quantity in the recipes and overbought a few items. But otherwise, it was a smooth operation.

The one item I found a little bit difficult to track down was flax seeds. Try a health-food store, not the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, as Barry Bonds' grand jury testimony would have you believe.

Also, I would use real maple syrup. "Syrups" such as the Aunt Jemima's brand are not within the spirit of the healthy snack. They're about as close to maple syrup as Kraft Singles is to cheese. In fact, the second ingredient in Aunt Jemima's original recipe is the ever dangerous high fructose corn syrup. It really does make a difference.

You can also tweak the recipe to suit your desires. Add chocolate chunks, dried fruit, yogurt chips, salt to complement the sweet. Experiment.

Then after laughing at the thought of substituting a bag of Doritos with bird feed, you can thank Pam.

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Nut and Seed Brittle

1/3 cup maple syrup (brush a very think coat over the brittle after cooking and before cutting to help it stick together )

2 cups sunflower seeds

1 cup cashews, coarsely chopped

1 cup almonds, coarsely chopped

1/2 cup sesame seeds

1/2 cup flax seeds

Preheat oven to 350.

Oil a cookie sheet and lay down parchment paper.

In a bowl, put half the syrup. Add the sunflower seeds and mix until well coated.

Add remaining nuts and seeds. Fold and mix well.

Add remainder of maple syrup and coat thoroughly.

On a cookie sheet spread the mixture evenly and bake for 30 minutes. (Check at 15 minutes.) The brittle is done if the nuts are toasted and hardened in the middle of the cookie sheet. If it's soft and sticky, put back in.

Cool and cut.

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Kitchen Idiot Howie Rumberg is an asap reporter based in New York. You can e-mail him at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

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